Glen Canyon is such a compelling intellectual topic because it is full of contradictions: It has been destroyed, and yet a movement is afoot to bring it back … it was a place perhaps equal in grandeur to Grand Canyon, and yet it was dammed and inundated with only the faintest puff of dissent; it […]
Book Reviews
Posted inMay 26, 2003: A losing battle
A book big enough to make waves
Northern Alaska’s Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR) is a big place with big oil reserves. And now it has a big photographic book that explores the collision of conservation and development there — a book that has created quite a stir in Washington, D.C. Arctic National Wildlife Refuge: Seasons of Life and Land, A Photographic […]
Posted inMay 26, 2003: A losing battle
Looking out for the little guys
From its roots as a scrappy, garage-band-style environmental group, the Paonia, Colorado-based Center for Native Ecosystems has become a voice for the kind of endangered species often overlooked by other conservation groups. The center has championed such unlikely species as Graham’s penstemon, a wildflower threatened by oil and gas development, the boreal toad and the […]
Posted inMay 26, 2003: A losing battle
Inside HCN
Radio High Country News has released the first of a three-part series on fire in the West. The series includes on-the-ground reports and interviews with the scientists, managers policy-makers and writers who are framing today’s debate over fire policy. Listen online at www.hcn.org/radio. Are animal-rights activists leading the environmental movement astray? Arizona writer Dave Gowdey […]
Posted inMay 12, 2003: Planting time
Nevada: A diamond in the rough
Our country’s driest state does not treat humans gently. “The desert was one prodigious graveyard,” wrote Mark Twain about his arrival in Nevada in the 1860s. “And the log chains, wagon tires, and rotting wrecks of vehicles were almost as thick as the bones.” Today, many people perceive Nevada as a gambling mecca surrounded by […]
Posted inMay 12, 2003: Planting time
Healthy energy on public lands
Wind turbines and solar panels may be coming soon to a national forest near you. According to a new report, there are plenty of opportunities to develop renewable energy on millions of acres of federal land in the West. In Assessing the Potential for Renewable Energy on Public Lands, the Bureau of Land Management and […]
Posted inMay 12, 2003: Planting time
Hiking toward healing
Maybe it sounds crazy for us to have spent years getting me well from cancer, only to go out into grizzly bear country. But we wanted to be back in the wild country that I dreamed of when things were at their worst. Diagnosed with cervical cancer at 30, Katie Gibson of Bozeman, Mont., craved […]
Posted inMay 12, 2003: Planting time
How safe is that fillet?
Most Americans — even those fanatical about eating only organic foods — assume that eating fish raised in the ocean is a healthy act that does no harm to the environment. Not necessarily. Some seafood varieties are overfished, and some are caught and farmed in ways that damage ocean ecosystems (HCN, 3/17/03: Bracing against the […]
Posted inApril 28, 2003: Indian Power
Roadkill 101
“Don’t touch that!” is what most kids hear when they investigate dead animals. But in Hayden, Colo., elementary school teachers are encouraging students – armed with maps and global positioning systems – to go in search of roadkill. Second- and fourth-grade students at Hayden Valley Elementary School have produced a map of roadkill patterns along […]
Posted inApril 28, 2003: Indian Power
Mary Colter discovered
Mary Colter, like other female artists of the Southwest, was inspired by the region’s vivid landscapes and indigenous cultures. But unlike Georgia O’Keeffe or Terry Tempest Williams, Colter remained largely unknown to the public and her peers during her lifetime. Following her death in 1958, she sank further into obscurity — until recently. Arnold Berke’s […]
Posted inApril 28, 2003: Indian Power
Hit the audio road in Nevada
“I wasn’t sure what I had found, but I knew it was Nevada,” says Jon Christensen, as he drives the so-called Extra-Terrestrial Highway in eastern Nevada. The road flanks Area 51, the top-secret military facility where scientists are rumored to be studying captured aliens. Originally a series on Nevada Public Radio, Nevada Variations is a […]
Posted inApril 28, 2003: Indian Power
Birdman’s biography soars
He’s known as the Birdman of Boise, and is perhaps the most underrated conservationist in the West. In Cool North Wind: Morley Nelson’s Life with Birds of Prey, Idaho writer Stephen Stuebner tells the story of a former Soil Conservation Service employee, “a flamboyant salt-of-the-earth character, a father of four, a husband, a widower, a […]
Posted inMarch 31, 2003: Tinkering with Nature
On the WaterWatch
Oregon’s rivers may run dry again this summer, but you can still saturate yourself with information about your favorite Beaver State stream. That’s because WaterWatch of Oregon has restructured its Web site to serve as a clearinghouse on state rivers. WaterWatch of Oregon, a nonprofit conservation group founded in 1985, is dedicated to restoring and […]
Posted inMarch 31, 2003: Tinkering with Nature
Emmet Gowin: Changing the Earth
The word “beauty” does not normally come to mind at the mention of bomb testing, open-pit mining, chemical disposal, or the marks these activities have left on the Western landscape. But Changing the Earth, a book and traveling exhibit of Emmet Gowin’s aerial photographs, lends rich texture and a mysterious vitality to the Hanford Nuclear […]
Posted inMarch 31, 2003: Tinkering with Nature
The Underground Heart: Return to a Hidden Landscape
I loved the desert when I lived in El Paso, but as a native, I had no environmental concerns. There was no such thing back then. We were too busy growing up in a vast landscape that could never change. — Ray Gonzalez, The Underground Heart Ray Gonzalez grew up on the Mexican border, in […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2003: Bracing against the tide
Backcountry adventure in the comfort of your living room
Armchair horseback riders can hit the trail with Don West’s Have Saddle, Will Travel: Low-Impact Trail Riding and Horse Camping. The book features West’s personal stories, poems and “Don’s Daily Dozen,” 13 of the author’s favorite exercises to keep riders in top form. As readers relive West’s wilderness adventures — which include chasing down frightened […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2003: Bracing against the tide
White House record on rollbacks
It’s undoubtedly grim reading. But it should be required for every conservationist — Democrat, Green, Republican or Independent. The Natural Resources Defense Council has just released its review of the Bush administration’s 2002 record on the environment. In Rewriting the Rules: The Bush Administration’s Assault on the Environment, the council details more than 100 federal […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2003: Bracing against the tide
Does your representative make the grade?
It’s report card time again for Congress, and Western politicians are seeing more Fs than As. According to the League of Conservation Voters’ annual National Environmental Scorecard, Western congressional members had some of the worst environmental voting records in the nation. Out of a possible score of 100, the senators of Colorado, Idaho, Utah and […]
Posted inMarch 17, 2003: Bracing against the tide
Tangled up in blue
“It has been rightly said: Color is the first principle of place.” A quick look across any desert reveals a lack of watery blues and leafy greens. But Ellen Meloy fills that void in her memoir, The Anthropology of Turquoise. She uses turquoise — the color and the mineral — to explore desert geology, flora […]
Posted inMarch 3, 2003: The Wild Card
Thank you, readers
Thank you, readers! The Spreading the News Campaign came to a successful conclusion Dec. 31, 2002. Your generous contributions have provided a stunning $1.36 million to support High Country News’ new media and intern programs. With your help, we’re reaching millions of Westerners: Radio High Country News, our weekly half-hour show, is now broadcast on […]